The band continues their iconic robotic riffs over a darker soundscape than before. They actively avoid making "Songs for the Deaf 2" and mostly succeed in pursuing a different direction. I kinda wish the music leaned a tad more into "Mosquito Song" vibes (the song that teased the title of this album).
While not as raw as their debut, the band's ferocity and capability for more melodic moments is not lost at all. Serj is more outwardly political, and Daron contributes more vocally, pairing well with Serj.
Eminem's debut shows a young, relatively optimistic Marshall who has aspirations of making it as a rapper. From a technical perspective, he's undeniably talented and his personality is pretty likable too. However, he lacks the rage and crassness that would demand the attention of America later in his career. The production is lowkey and not always memorable.
After the hype from the "FREE EARL" movement, Earl makes his official debut a bit more dreary and antagonistic towards his newfound fame than expected. However, he makes well on the lofty expectations of high level lyricism with complex rhyme schemes and flows.
This album really feels like the grand introduction of Travis Scott, with T.I. narrating his journey of leaving his home to pursue music and finding success. Travis reps Houston heavy, with the album having clear southern hip hop influences and homages. This album also has some really great production, with spacy trap beats/synths and occasionally some rock flavors.
Beautiful, hypnotic, and emotionally moving instrumentation and vocals. It’s easy to get lost in all the intimate and intricate layers of the songs.
DOOM returns with a slightly darker album, having a gruffer voice and making some references to political turmoil on Absolutely and Cellz. The album is mostly what you'd expect from DOOM: some incredibly technical, complex, and occasionally humorous raps with a supervillain flair behind sample/interlude choices. The skits aren’t as iconic as on his previous albums. Also, some of the songs have weirdly/weakly mixed drums.
This shit goes hard as fuck
The raw instrumentation and insane and energetic vocals from Serj make this album so fun to listen to. The lyrics are somehow silly, violent, mournful, and politically vengeful without feeling like they tonally clash.
Bob Dylan uses biting, at times schizophrenic writing to commentate on lifestyles of the everyday struggling American (specifically where he grew up) and throw scorn at those who are out of touch and sneer at common people. While the structure of the songs is a bit formulaic, the music is still good. The folk rock that backs the album is quite nice; I'm glad that Dylan went electric.
Spacy, melodic, yet aggressive, Peggy creates a unique soundscape to back his shit talk. The songs are initially strange but have some underlying catchiness that let them stick in your head more than you'd expect. The tracks also often blend into each other quite nicely.
Some pretty good gangsta rap over The Alchemist's chill and jazzy production. The loops on this are very easy to like, and Freddie's flow is somehow effortless and skillful at the same time. Freddie also gets personal at times, adding some variety and additional impact to his words.
A collection of creative songs that overlap several common rap topics with foods. DOOM even fits in food tie-ins with the skits (the "edible wrappers" skit is especially clever). The production has some classic DOOM sampling, along with some help from common collaborators like Madlib.
Raw down to the 2000s era online mixtape cover, The Hybrid has a late 20s Danny Brown spit some pretty good raps over some pretty interesting production for an underground rapper. The topics are similar to what he would rap about later - doing/selling drugs and living in poverty. While he's not as unique and creatively formed as he would be later in his career, he shows flashes of greatness; Greatest Rapper Ever has some classic Danny Brown lines.
Eminem makes an album complaining that people didn't like his last album. Don't worry: if you were hoping that there would also be some relationship songs where two people are fucked up but they still love each other, he still somehow adds those, like he does with every album! The rapping and production is thankfully better than on Revival, but the flows are still occasionally robotic, there's still some corny lines, the hooks often suck, and his bitterness shows regression.
A very loose and fun album that lets Josh Homme, Dave Grohl, and John Paul Jones jam out. They aren't afraid to try different things, and the music is all the better for it.
A very messy, honest, raw album from Earl that finds strength in brevity. While Earl touches on his depression and makes reference to the death of his father, there's actually quite a bit of hope shown on the album, showing that he's still putting his best foot forward to make it through the pain he's faced. The lo-fi looped samples pair perfectly with Earl's rapping.
When do they pick up their instruments and play the music?
In all seriousness, I do think there's value in silence and highlighting the small noises that we tune out every day can be interesting and poignant; for example, listening to this song while Free Palestine protests are going on in the background (side note - John McWhorter is kinda stupid for dismissing the protests as interrupting the song instead of adding incredible meaning to the moment). However... you don't need to put ... read more
A fun, short album themed around a radio station run by Big Boy. Vince raps over some modern west coast sounds with a slight twinge of weirdness, and he brings some standard gangsta with some short reflections on the violence he’s surrounded by on Tweakin’.
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